Artist: Tokyo Police Club
Album: Elephant Shell
Year: 2008
Take your 90's math-rock bands (think Counterfeit), your 80's art-pop bands (think middle-era The Cure) and then The Strokes and a dash of Gang Of Four and put them in a melting pot and you've got Tokyo Police Club. The Strokes is the most immediate: Elephant Shell's songs are immediate, obtuse and remarkably catchy. The influences never dominate the album: despite the math-rock and post-punk tendencies, Tokyo Police Club put forth something immediately accessible on it's own merits while Dave Monks gives his personal insights, sometimes directly relatable and at other times absurd. One thing Tokyo Police Club do much better than their contemporaries is that they know not to overstay their welcome; only one song goes over three minutes, but within the two and half-minute package is a full song with all that it needs and nothing extraneous added on. Opener "Centennial" start's the album's pace, and it never relents. Highlights are "In A Cave", The Photo Atlas-esque "Graves", "Juno", and key track "Tessellate", whose lyrics are too inventive to ignore, and the sing-along "The Harrowing Adventures Of...". The whole album is strong and never drags on. "Your English Is Good" is my personal favorite, or maybe the mathy closer "The Baskervilles".
Hear it for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93sf6H-POzs
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